Robertson and Fresh Collection of Tampa Photographs

The Robertson and Fresh commercial photographic firm was active in Tampa
from 1932 to 1960. William Vernon "Red" Robertson worked in the field
taking photographs while Harry Fresh processed and printed the images.
Robertson and Fresh produced thousands of pictures that provide an
invaluable visual record of the Tampa area from the Depression to the
prosperous post-World War II era.

The bulk of USF's Robertson
and Fresh collection came from a large collection of negatives acquired
by the late Hampton Dunn for use in his Tampa: A Pictorial History;
he later donated the collection to USF's Tampa Library. When Dunn
donated the negatives to the library they were still in the large,
multi-drawer metal cabinet that Robertson and Fresh had used to store
them. Unfortunately, due to acetic acid decomposition accelerated by
years of storage in conditions of high heat and humidity, many of the
original negatives had disintegrated beyond recovery. Between 1994 and
1995, Charles Brown, president of the Tampa Historical Society, arranged
for the printing of the approximately 1,500 surviving Robertson and
Fresh negatives housed in Special Collections. Subsequently, Mrs. Verna
Lee Lupo, daughter of William Robertson, donated several hundred
additional negatives for integration into the library’s Robertson and
Fresh Collection. Mr. Bob Baggett of Bob Baggett Photography generously
provided the library with preservation prints of these negatives, many
of which were in imminent danger of deterioration. Other prints of
Robertson and Fresh images came from the Tony Pizzo Collection.

This digital collection was made possible by a generous gift from the Frank E. Duckwall Foundation in 1996.